Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins (7 page)

The room into which the small man shuffled was both vast and
cluttered beyond all reason. Shelves were everywhere, running right to the top
of the ceiling several stories above, and every one of them was packed with all
manner of ancient artifacts, mechanical devices in various stages of completion
and common household objects which had become hopelessly mislaid in a system of
sorting understood best by its creator, but in reality by no one at all.

Doctor Theodore
Chronopolis
possessed one of the most remarkable brains in
all the
world. His work had touched on nearly every discipline, though he had been
happiest since he had made his way to the Ancient Studies department of the
museum, where his eccentricities were tolerated in deference to his sheer,
instinctive brilliance. But he remained a man who loved a challenge, loved to
have his perceptions of what was possible torn down by facts, and most of all,
he secretly loved adventure, even if he preferred to play in the margins of
such stories with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

To that end,
Chronopolis
had never
been more pleased than when he had made the acquaintance of a remarkable young
man with a crimson mask who called himself the Red Panda. It took him back to
his boyhood when he used to scour the papers for tales of the exploits of the
Society of Gentleman Adventurers and other mystery men. More importantly, it
gave him a chance to help people, in his own way.

And that is why on this particular day a series of specimens
recently brought back from an unearthed Mayan settlement had been removed from
the large work table, and an enormous, man-shaped metal monster had taken their
place. The casing of the great beast had been opened in a number of places, and
parts as large as a fist and as small as a fingernail had been removed and
spread out upon the table surrounding the creature It was easy to see that this
robot would terrorize the city no more, but
Chronopolis
was desperate to make some discovery that might help to bring down its brethren
before they could strike again.

From within the long shadows that surrounded the table, a
voice hissed. “Doctor
Chronopolis
,” was all it said
as a pair of blank white eyes appeared, Cheshire Cat-like.

Chronopolis
had been greeted in
this manner many times before, but he always found it unnerving. He stood
hastily and ran his fingers through his mane of grey hair, which stood straight
up at all times as if the good doctor were being electrocuted. “Oh, dear boy,”
he said, “you do like to give me a fright, don't you? Come out here, we are
quite alone.”

“Not
quite
alone,
Doctor C,” a voice called from above.
Chronopolis
looked up to see the Flying Squirrel hanging upside-down high above, held aloft
by her remarkable Static Shoes. He beamed at her and raised his hands apart in
greeting. He was very fond of the Flying Squirrel, but not for the reasons that
any man who saw her would normally be. He felt very paternal where she was
concerned, though he had never allowed his own daughter to play with
superheroes.

“I've made some tea,” he said to her. “I'll fetch you some
milk from the icebox.” And with that he was gone. The glowing, blank eyes moved
forward from the darkness and resolved themselves into a mask, then a face,
then a man in a grey hat and coat. She dropped to the floor beside him without
a sound, landing in a crouch. He appeared not to have noticed, but was instead
already absorbed in the mechanical cadaver before him.

“Doesn't look so tough spread out like that, does it?” she
asked.

“Tough? No. Brilliant? Yes.” The Red Panda seemed to be
having a pang of regret about letting Doctor
Chronopolis
have all the fun of studying their foe. “Squirrel, this is absolutely stunning.
A real cut above Captain Clockwork's original models. You were right, he didn't
let them loose without making a great many improvements.” He was lost in
thought for a moment,
then
snapped back to reality by
a sudden realization.

“Squirrel, make sure that door is locked up tight, would you?”
he asked. “It wouldn't do for us to be discovered here.”

“Oh, dear boy, have no fear,”
Chronopolis
said, hurrying back into the room with a teacup in his hand. “The outer chamber
is completely sealed. I've been poking about with this fellow for a day and a
half, and I had no intention of being discovered and hung up by my heels as a
suspect.” The Doctor poured tea into the cup and stirred it before handing it
to the Squirrel with a smile. “It makes life difficult for mad scientists
everywhere when one of us turns evil, you know,” he said.

“We'll fix his little red wagon for you, Doc,” the Squirrel
said with a toothy grin.

“Of that I have no doubt at all, my dear,”
Chronopolis
said, turning back to the object of his labor.
“But you may find that to be no mean feat. Captain Clockwork is undoubtedly a
genius, if a twisted and evil one. He has certainly removed the one weakness
you were able to exploit last time, dear boy.”

The Red Panda seemed surprised. “The command signal?” he
asked.

“Just so,”
Chronopolis
countered,
pointing out several features within the robot as he spoke, which the Flying
Squirrel could neither see nor fully understand. “His old models received
instructions on a special radio beam, which you were able to overwhelm with a
counter-signal. These new creatures receive no outside instructions whatsoever,
apart from at their initial programming. They are completely self-sufficient
and able to interpret a wide variety of inputs within the parameters of a
specific mission.”

“But Doctor,” the Red Panda protested, “they certainly
reacted to the counter-signal during the first attack.”

“By homing in on it and trying to kill you?”

“Well, yes,” the Red Panda admitted, “but I get that a lot.”

“I'm sure,” the scientist smiled. “It is true that the tin
soldiers involved in the first attack appeared to be a different model than
these, more closely resembling the original clockwork men. But it strikes me as
very likely that this was by design on the part of their maker.”

“You mean they looked like the Model-As so we'd try the same
takedown,” the Squirrel began, “and get blown to Topeka for our trouble?”

“Pure speculation on my part, but it seems likely,” Doctor
Chronopolis
nodded.

“Doctor, are you certain of this?” the Red Panda asked.
“These models fell down
en masse
when
we broadcast the counter-signal. Why would Captain Clockwork sacrifice them
like that?”

“I couldn't really say,” Doctor
Chronopolis
admitted. “Tactical analysis isn't my field at all. It is possible that once
they had driven those unfortunate people to their destruction their mission was
complete and Clockwork left them rather than risk them being followed back to
his lair.”
Chronopolis
clucked a little. “Does seem
like a waste of resources, though.”

“It certainly does,” the Red Panda agreed.

“Or,” the Flying Squirrel began with a click of her tongue,
“they could detect the counter-signal just like the others could and they
dropped so we'd think we had beaten them and not suspect a thing when we
started to pull them apart.”

“She thinks it's a trap,” the Red Panda explained.

“Oh, dear,”
Chronopolis
said
soothingly, “
there
's no danger.”

“But there is,” she said, her eyes dancing with frustration.
“Maybe 'trap' is the wrong word, since it sets you boys in knots, but Clockwork
gave us this free sample for a reason. And whatever that reason is, it isn't
gonna
be good.”

The two men exchanged a look. “She is most likely correct,”
Doctor
Chronopolis
said.

“She usually is,” the mystery man agreed, “but since for the
moment I can't begin to guess what that reason might be, perhaps you ought to
tell us what you know. You say the mechanical men are capable of independent
operation now?”

“Oh my, yes,”
Chronopolis
enthused. “It is really most ingenious. Where his earlier models were very
advanced puppets at best, these new designs can be said to have a true
electronic brain.”

“Is that really possible?” the Red Panda asked, startled.

 
“Not merely
possible,” the Doctor said, more and more excited, “it lies here before you! I
admit that I don't yet truly understand all of its functions. If the
opportunity presents itself to bring me back one or two more samples, for
comparison purposes–”

“I promise that we'll try, Doctor
Chronopolis
,”
the Red Panda said, leaning in to examine the circuitry close-up.

“So if these doo-dahs have a brain now, does that mean we
should be aiming for the head?” The Flying Squirrel was a practical sort of
girl.

“Oh my, no,”
Chronopolis
said.
“The head is quite another matter altogether. Remind me to show you.”

“Oh, good,” she sighed.

“The brain itself is actually composed of a staggeringly
complex web of neural circuits scattered throughout the torso of the beast.”
The Doctor was in something of
a lather
now, and
seemed almost giddy. “A really impressive piece of work. You see, these filaments
wound throughout the creature's inner works connect the brain in such a manner
that any damage done can simply be re-routed around. In order to have any
effect on the functionality of the brain, one would have to damage so much of
the robot's body that I find it hard to believe the beast would still stand.
Quite a
step up on our own design
actually.”

“Not that you're complaining,” said the Squirrel with a bat
of her eyelashes.

“What's that?” The Doctor seemed startled for a moment,
then
smiled. “Oh no, of course not. Evolution did the best
it could, my dear. But that is no reason for us to repeat its mistakes.”

“Doctor, this is amazing,” the Red Panda said with wonder in
his voice. “But unless I'm very much mistaken, these monsters have capacity
they are not even beginning to use.”

“
Whaddya
mean?” the Squirrel
asked.

“I mean it appears to me that with a network like this,
Clockwork's creations have an intellectual capacity far greater than they have
shown so far.” The Red Panda's face was serious, but there was no denying he
was impressed. “They could almost pass for human.”

“You mean they're as smart as real people?” The Squirrel was
horrified.

“I saw that myself, dear boy,”
Chronopolis
said. “But if you will notice, the network is not connected here, or here. But
it certainly appears that with a very few modifications, his creations could be
much more than they are.”

“Is it possible that he doesn't know that?” Kit asked
hopefully.

“No,” both men said together.

“Yeah, I didn't think so,” she sighed. “So that's the brain,
what about the head?”

“I'm sorry?” Doctor
Chronopolis
seemed lost for a moment.

“You said I should ask you about the head,” the Flying
Squirrel said with a patience she showed to few others.

“Ah! The head!” He was lost in enthusiasm again and picked
up the creature's bisected cranium. “Another masterpiece of mysterious
functionality. As you can see, the face of this mechanical man was unadorned in
any way. Cold metal.”

“Sure.” Kit was pretty sure that she wasn't going to like
this.

“Look inside,”
Chronopolis
said
opening up the metal skull. “Hundreds of tiny actuators and gears, all clearly
intended to control something, but what?”

“What indeed?” the Red Panda said, mystified. A moment later
his attention was drawn to the creature's arms, neatly removed and lying beside
it. “Doctor, do these
whiplike
appendages simply snap
on and off?”

“Oh, yes,”
Chronopolis
smiled.
“Easily changed for something able to manipulate like a human hand, or at least
a claw, assuming that he has such parts available, which I have no doubt he
does.”

“So Captain Clockwork has mass-produced enough units of a
basic model of mechanical man that he can add or subtract functionality
depending upon what is required for the task at hand.” The Red Panda was horrified.

“It gets worse, Boss,” the
Squirrel
said. “Maybe the reason that nobody saw any robots with guns is that the ones
that did the
shootin
' looked like people! You said
these big brains could pass them for humans.”

“If no one engaged them too directly I suppose,” he nodded.

“And Doc, those gears and whatsits could be used to move
facial muscles, couldn't they? I mean, if they had any?” Her eyes were wide at
the thought.

“Well, yes, in theory.”
Chronopolis
was fascinated. “I have no idea how the full system would work, but now that
you mention it, I cannot imagine what else they could possibly be used for. How
interesting!”

“And then some,” the Flying Squirrel said, slapping her fist
into her left gauntlet with a sharp crack. “That means those poor people were
gunned down by robots. Robots with human faces! Captain Clockwork's killers
could be anywhere!”

“And we still don't even know what his plan is,” the Red
Panda said grimly.

“But if he had the power to hide his creatures among us,”
the Doctor asked, “why risk the discovery of this power by allowing us to
capture these units?”

“He may have assumed we would never be able to understand
what he had created,” the Red Panda said hopefully.

“Or it's a trap,” the Squirrel added helpfully.